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At Grade 6 you can work a figured bass for the piano, or for voices. Unless you have written for voices before you may be wise to opt for the piano style although it is not without pitfalls.
As the AB workbook suggests, a good way is to keep one note in the bass clef and three in the right hand. Additionally -
make sure each chord contains 4 notes unless you are clear which notes can safely be be left out.
this means you will need to double a note (= have it twice, in different octaves). Usually it will be the root (not the bass note) of the chord, although you can double the 5th. Try not to double the 3rd.
don't simply 'compose' by following the numbers - think how it will be played
don't make the pianist's hands jump around so he looks like a demented idiot when he plays the music.
try to make the top part as tuneful as you can.
Consult page 7 of the workbook for examples.
You should be aware of consecutive 5ths and octaves which you can read about here and here but they will be mentioned again.
Here is a figured bass worked particularly badly.
The horizontal line in the figuring under chords 7 and 8 means 'keep the previous chord for this bass note'.
The angled lines in the music show problem areas.
Consecutive octaves can be found in several places such as between chords 1 to 2 (D - F#) and 4 to 5 and 9 to 10. Now, consecutive octaves matter most in voice writing but, when scoring for the piano, too obvious writing of this sort particularly chords 9 to 10 creates a rather primitive effect. Having them in outer parts is really bad!
You really need to avoid writing consecutive root position triads such as the RH part from 4 to 5 and 14 to 15.
The doubled 3rd (F#) in chord 2 is rather strong, just miss out the one in the RH and have 3 notes.
In chord 13 the D is the 7th. 7th really must fall in vocal writing. Here, because 14 jumps so high, the effect is altogether unsatisfactory even though this is a keyboard part.
The top part has a reasonable amount of the melodic interest.
The RH does not have to jump around.
Often 1 or more notes in a RH chord occur in the next chord, or are very close moving only a step or a 3rd - economy of motion.
A variety of spacing has been used in the RH, not just close position triads.
Here is an example in a minor key
Note the minims in the RH part for variety.
Note that the 7th chord in the last bar has been respaced, but it could have stayed as a minim.
EXERCISE 4
Download the PDF exercise sheet
Download the [possible] answers
This page was last edited on 22/07/2008
